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A
Maybe the reason why fewer babies were crawling is because of the modern lifestyle and not the biology or the growth development, right? What if we're quietly accepting these delays as new normal instead of asking.
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Hello, and welcome to Talking Toddlers, where I share more than just tips and tricks on how to reduce tantrums or build your toddler's vocabulary. We're going to cover all of that. But here our goal is to develop clarity. Because in this modern world, it's truly overwhelming. This podcast is about empowering moms to know the difference between fact and fiction. To never give up, to tap into everyday activities so your child stays on track. He's not falling behind. He's thriving. Through your guidance, we know that true learning starts at home. So let's get started.
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A
If you've been following this series, you know we're answering one of the most searched questions online. Is my baby's development normal? In episode one, we unpacked. What milestones really are and why we should think of them as more of a reference point than rigid deadlines. The goal is not perfection. It's progress and informed parents. You, you notice that progress. You recognize when something's off and then you act early. That's where prevention begins. So welcome back to Talking Toddlers. I'm Erin, your host. And today in episode two, we're talking about movement. Movement development. Why crawling and walking and everything in between really matters. Baby's overall growth and development. And why this movement is connected to brain development, behavior, speech and language, and even long term learning. We're diving into the question that many moms just like you search online. Is it okay that my baby didn't crawl? Or perhaps he's just scooting on his bum. Or he's rolling. What? If you're asking, my baby isn't walking yet. Should I worry? So this isn't about checking those boxes like I discussed in last week's episode. It's about understanding the why. The subtle nuances underneath between the movement process.
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C
Right.
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A
So crawling isn't just cute. Or rolling over isn't just cute. It's really crucial to their brain development. And let's start with a simple truth. Babies are born to move from the very beginning. They stretch and they roll and they scoot and they crawl and they pull up to stand. And eventually, yes, they walk. Every movement. Progression is building a better and more integrated brain. Brain. So let's take a look at gross motor development. Gross just means the big muscles, not the fine muscles. Fine muscles in your hands, fine muscles in your mouth. Gross Are the big, the biceps, the quads, the glute, the torso, gross. Motor development isn't just about those muscles and their strength or their power. It's about moving the body so we can then wire the brain. And that connection between brain wiring and body movement is really where progression, progress, health, growth, and development is seen, is measurable. So let's roll it back just a skosh. I want to recognize or perhaps introduce for the first time that when babies are born, they have about 100 billion neurons in their brain, which is the same that you and I hold, you know, at any age. And that's 100 billion with a B. But the key with a newborn is that there are no connection, Jeff. There's no synapses that have been formed, but as soon as they come out and they start crying and wailing and moving, about 1 million synapses to develop every second. And that happens over the first several years. And so that's why people like me in speech, language development, early intervention, occupational therapists, we're so focused on those first several years because we're literally building brains. So your little one, everyday experiences will either strengthen or, or weaken those synapses. Each time your baby stretches or tries to lift their head or pushes up against the floor on tummy time, or against your lap, or tries to rock or turns his or her head or raises their hand, whether it's spontaneous or purposeful, they're making neural connections. They're connecting brain organization and synapse firing with their body. And the more they move that body, the more they're wiring the brain. And so that's why it's important that we don't skip over these developmental processes, nor do we rush them, because it's important to really experience each progressive step. If we rush or if we skip, then we're risking missing critical learning process. We're missing the possibility that some of those connections aren't as solid or as strong and efficient as they could be. And the thing is, is that we can't really duplicate that in the same way later on. Yes, we can do specific interventions, intentional activation, a wide range of therapies to help rebuild, reconstruct, and close those gaps. But it's much easier to do it the first time around. And that's why I'm here. That's why I want to share my 35 years of practice of learning on the job and sharing it with you. So then you can do it on purpose each and every day, right? To avoid, prevent, stay ahead of this timeline. So for today's, episode. I wanted to just take a look at what I refer to as like the big five gross motor development milestones.
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C
Right?
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And we're just going to highlight them here and then we'll talk about how you can use them at home and why they're important and not to rush them, not to skip them. So the first is this infamous tummy time that I talk a lot about here. You probably hear it schools. If you, if you attend any kind of school function, pediatricians and, and anyone worth their salt, we'll talk about the importance of tummy time. The interesting thing is it's kind of made up. We've had to create this developmental milestone called tummy time because back in 1994, there was a campaign called back to Sleep and pediatricians and researchers started to connect that there was a higher risk for sleeping on the bellies, the babies and sids. There was a. Just a stronger correlation, not a one to one. There is still a lot of discussion around this. But that's where tummy time was brought to life, right? And, and because of that, we're abiding by those rules and we're following the best science or best medical advice. But this is really where it begins, right? This is where your baby and you know, before 1994, mind you, all babies, or 95% of them, slept on their tummy. So they had a lot of natural time on their bellies and turning their head and pushing up and strengthening. Because that's what the first step is, right? It strengthens the neck, the shoulders, the upper torso, the lower back as they're lifting their arms. And it gives your baby a whole different view of the world, right? And so if they spend what, 15 plus hours sleeping, then during those waking hours, you know, those first six, eight weeks, it's an hour to an hour and a half and then it stretches out to two and two and a half hours. A lot of those times awake, they need to be spending on their belly because those 15 plus hours sleeping has to be on their back. So tummy time does a bunch of different things for us. The first and foremost is that it reduces the risk of what we call the flathead syndrome. Since 1994, and we did this whole, as I said, the back to sleep campaign, excuse me, we've had a big increase of flat heads because the sutures in the cranium in the head, the skull aren't solid yet and the brain is growing at lightning speed. Then if they spend too much time on their back and they're sleeping for 15 hours. So that's half their day. Then we need to counteract that, right? And so we want to reduce that risk, but we also want to encourage motor planning. And motor planning is really kind of in the center of all this. But here's something that most parents, I don't think, really realize, or at least with all the parents that I've talked to over the years and even currently today, tummy time supports early speech development. And you might say, how does that work, Aaron? But it's building the very muscles that we need to breathe, inhale and exhale, right? Vocalize, ah, and coordinate the head, the neck, the jaw, and the trunk to have really good what we call co articulation, where the, this fine motor really gets more and more refined. As the gross motor, the big muscles get stronger and more coordinated. So as your baby lie on their tummy, they're not just working the big gross motors, right? They're learning how to breathe deeply, how to feel that vibration, even if in the beginning is by accident, right? They're on their tummy for the first, you know, couple of minutes of their day, and they're like, oh, this doesn't feel right. And they squeal, right? Well, that's vibration, that's phonation. And they're realizing, oh, those sounds have come out of me.
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Right?
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And so it's really helping them build, prepare, practice this complex motor sequence of events. Inhale, ah, exhale, phone, a, all of this. And then I move my lips or I move my jaw and I get different speech sound productions. Again, they're not thinking this, but they're putting their motor planning and what they feel in their body, part of those early, early signs of sensory processing, together with what they're hearing. And so it's like a lot of stuff in those first three months by accident. And then you and I, we reinforce it. So in short, for this first big gross motor developmental area, tummy time, it really lays the groundwork not only for the big movement patterns that we want, right? We ultimately want them to roll over, we want them to crawl, and then we want them to walk. That's important, and we're going to talk a lot about that, but it also literally lays the foundation for communication, for speech and language processing. So the second major area of these big muscle groups, right, Is rolling over, like I mentioned. So somewhere around four to six months, your baby will begin to roll. And this introduces them to the idea that, ha, I have control over these movements, right? I'm in tummy time, or I'M on my back and if I can move a certain way, if I can motor plan my torso, my arm, my shoulder, I can roll over and then I can have a different perspective of this world, right? It's a playful form of their first sign of independence. It helps them integrate those primitive reflexes because now they're moving with intention and it shows there's a coordination between both sides of their body. And it begins to signal that your baby is starting to integrate sensory data or sensory input. For example, if they're on their back and they hear somebody over here, but they can't see them, they can roll over to look to see. Maybe it's their big brother's voice, right? Or maybe it's their dog that they love. But they're beginning to put those, those sensory data inputs together on purpose, right? It's what I hear or what I see, what I feel. And it's that initial stage of really incorporating it all together. It also rolling over left to right and right to left supports their vestibular system. Their vestibular system is their inner ear. It's crucial for balance. Spatial orientation. There's a lot fine motor spatial orientation needed in the mouth because the tongue really has to find its movement patterns and stability inside this small oral cavity, right? The tip of the tongue, the back of the tongue, the blade and the body, the left and the right. There's a whole bunch of fine motor skills and that is spatial planning or spatial orientation. And I often say to parents who have a child with oral motor difficulty, it's like they're not sure where to put their tongue inside their mouth. They don't have that good spatial orientation. And then later on, as they're building the vestibular system, it also helps with attention and sustained focus. So this is what science has taught us over the last 30, 40, 50 years of how all of these systems are, are wired together through their everyday life experiences. So now the third area of these big gross motor sections is crawling, right? The infamous crawling. And that usually happens between six and 10 months, give or take. I always, you know, I see a 7, 8 or 9 month old and I'm curious if they're crawling yet and what does that look like? And in my best professional advice, I say it's not skippable, right? That crawling is one of the most brain building activities that we've learned happens in this infancy stage. And it's really, really important. And I knew this early in my career in the 80s and 90s and I really know it now. And we'll talk about what's happening in the world of early child development and what the recommendations are and what they mean. But this is my take, right. When I look at these five gross motor planning phases or milestones, I want to share what I've learned over the years. So crawling really involves what we call cross lateral movement, where the right arm and the left leg move in unison and vice versa.
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Right.
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And you have lower motor neurons. Right. Your big legs and you have upper motor neurons, your upper limbs.
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Right.
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And, and we're trying to figure out how to coordinate those, that's motor planning, and synchronize them to propel me forward. Now, like I said, some kids are working through this coordination, this motor planning, and they go sideways or they go backwards, or they go, you know, two forward and one back. And it's fascinating if you really sit back and you watch this process. But this whole crawling really strengthens the corpus callosum. And that is an, an area in the brain between the two hemispheres.
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Right.
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If you, you have your right hemisphere and your left hemisphere and they're sort of touching. But what's really communicating is this band of fibers called the cortex, corpus callosum. And we refer to that as a bridge. And it's the bridge that really connects the left and the right hemispheres, allowing them to communicate. And it's essential for things like what I just mentioned, coordination, memory, higher order learning, and even emotional regulation. So this corpus callosum, and I've had two cases in my whole career where a child was born without the corpus callosum, and they were not able to grow them.
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C
Right.
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But we were able to somehow get the right and the hemisphere, the right and the left hemisphere, to communicate enough that they were able to walk and talk. But they had a lot of rigidity. There was a lot of compartmentalization in their daily planning. And that's a whole nother story, but it's pretty rare. But it does happen. But the corpus callosum is huge for higher order thinking and like I said, emotional regulation and language beyond verbal talking, such as reading and writing, and even impulse control. And I think I mentioned that. But moving forward and really building a network.
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Right.
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And so let's for a moment talk about what we refer to as interhemispheric communication, where the corpus callosum facilitates this communication between the right and left hemispheres. And that it really is a pivotal brain area that helps with speech, speech processing, language and language processing. And, and I use the term processing as it, it integrates a Lot of elements.
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C
Right.
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And. And I learned this early in my career with looking at stuttering clients. And that developmental. Developmental stuttering is really a speech disorder. That there's a disruption between the right and the left hemisphere communication system.
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C
Right.
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That it's not fluent. And some research even suggest that stuttering is that there hasn't been a dominant side. And we all are, you know, right hemisphere dominant or left hemisphere dominant. But it can be caused when there's a dysregulation with a corpus callosum. Because speech, the physical part of talking, is motor planning.
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C
Right.
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And that there's a timing mechanism and there's a sensory and motor coordination mechanism to speech to be able to always know where you're heading and getting your articulators ready to say whatever the next word is. Right. And it moves incredibly quickly, as you can hear me ramble on here. But the most important thing is that the corpus callosum is that bridge that helps communicate the right and left hemisphere. And there are some structural differences between the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere. And it's not quite as delineated as a lot of people like to imply. Excuse me, but studies do show that individuals who stutter may have structural differences and that the corpus callosum is not as smooth and fluid as people who don't stutter. And so they've looked at how there's a reduced white matter volume within that region, and that that could be one contributing factor to why some individuals stutter. Now, in just kind of looking at neuroimaging studies, we've revealed that the brain activation between people who stutter and those who don't really suggest that stuttering might be related to this interhemispheric discommunication. Right. And so when we think of crawling, we need to look at how it not only builds these big muscles. Right? And that's important, like I said, it also builds some fine motor.
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Right.
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Because the big muscles support the fine motor. We stabilize our body or our torso. We can move our arm, we stabilize our arm, we can move our hand, we stabilize our hand, we can move our fingers. And the same thing happens with our face and our oral cavity. So we stabilize our body, and then we can move our head, and we stabilize our jaw, and then we can move our lips, and we stabilize our lips, and we can move our tongue. So it goes from big muscles to those fine motors. So crawling builds that stability and prepares the body for a lot of these fine motor tasks, which include feeding and speaking, but also handwriting and reading.
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Right.
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A
That because the eye tracking is part of all of this developmental wonderful creative messiness around crawling, right? So now we can look at some specialization in the right hemisphere versus the left hemisphere. But they work together because of this corpus callosum. And they tend to do they specialize in different elements to verbal speech, to processing information and different tasks, but they're always really working in rhythm with one another. So for example, on the left hemisphere, language, language processing, speech, speech sounds, even vocabulary. And then how we translate that into reading and writing, that's all oriented in the left hemisphere. It plays a role in the left hemisphere, plays a role in logical reasoning, some analytical thinking, sequential patterns, sequential tasks that you will see on functional MRIs that the left hemisphere is wiring or is hot, is firing right now, on the right side, or, excuse me, on the right hemisphere, you'll see things that are more associated with spatial awareness and pattern recognition, nonverbal communication. And they do need to work together to have that whole fluid range of communication. So the right hemisphere also plays a role in creativity, intuition, emotional processing. Now we also have a thing called contralateral. So the right hemisphere works the left side of the body and the left hemisphere works the right side of the body. That's why when an older person has a stroke on the right side of the body, they could have paralysis on the left side of the body and vice versa. So again, we can think back. What does crawling do for us? It helps wire the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere, like I said, the upper motor neurons, right, the upper limbs and the lower limbs. And it helps practice or gives them that your child the opportunity to practice to integrate all of that. And we're constantly wiring again, we have 100 billion neurons or synapse that aren't connected at birth. And they have to connect and wire this whole higher order thinking from the ground up. And crawling is an important piece to that. Now, while there is a tendency for one side of the brain, right, the left or the right hemisphere to be dominant. Like I said that we could be left hemisphere dominant or right hemisphere. But because of that corpus callosum, it's interconnected and they do work together. When I look at overall speech and communication skills, I'm looking at both the verbal and the nonverbal. And when someone has difficulty reading nonverbal or sarcasm, or as they don't really understand humor, that tends to be more right hemisphere dominant. And the point for me sharing all of this kind of science stuff, not that you really have to or that I explained, expect you to understand or Recall the details. The point is that crawling, that whole experience, and it's not just getting up on all fours and moving forward, it's the steps leading to that, that that movement or all of those movement matter, that practice matters, and that science and technology has given us insight. Literally, we can now see inside the brain and that we can understand where it's firing in a very automatic, smooth, efficient pattern and how the, the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere work together while doing these certain activities.
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C
Right?
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So now the fourth big milestone, or big gross motor milestone is standing. And that's part of the process, too. So around nine to 12 months, you'll have a baby who is crawling, hopefully with all four limbs, and he's getting going faster and faster. But now he's pulling up to a stand, right? And he's realizing, not only can I see the world on all fours, but standing up on two legs give me. Gives me an even better view.
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Right?
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So babies will pull to stand. That strengthens their core, their leg, leg strengths. That makes sense. But it's also preparing that vestibular system, the inner ear, for upright mobility. And it's different for all fours to stand on your two legs and find that balance.
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Right?
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So what do they need? They need to cruise along, right? Holding on to furniture, they're testing their balance. They're practicing weight shifting, right, from the left leg to the right. And you can see this pretty clearly when they're first learning how to walk up and down stairs. But just walking across your living room floor, they're exploring this vertical movement. And again, this is part of the motor developmental process. This is also, as you probably are well aware, if you have a one year old or beyond, that this is when confidence really begins to blossom, to grow, literally and figuratively.
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Right?
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They're realizing, I can get through this world a lot faster on two legs than I can on four legs. And I can see things and react to things. And my timing is better with a lot of practice. Right. But in the beginning, that interim step will be cruising. And I ask my families, what was tummy time like, what was rolling over like? Explain in great detail what crawling was like, did they cruise? How long did they cruise for? And then when walking begins to appear, around that first birthday, but it's usually between 12 and 15 months. That's kind of the average. More so, even though the normal range can be pushed out to closer to 18 months.
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Right.
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But what matters is not the time frame, but what they went through to get there.
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Right.
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A
And that's what I'M trying to bring home here is not that they say their first words at 12 months and they, they start walk independently at 12 months. It's really what has led them, right? Each and every progressive step, each and every quote unquote milestone prepares the brain and the body for the next one. So my takeaway here is that crawling and walking and speech shouldn't really be rushed. Let your baby work through it, if you know what the interim steps are, no pun intended, but then you can encourage them, right? Because babies who walk too soon, or if they skip crawling altogether, seem to lack a core strength. They seem to have less coordination and their sensory integration, their wiring or that they learn to wire through that cross crawling process. They seem to be less aware, right, that they're, they tend to be a little bit more sensitive. They tend to not have good, good flexibility in their daily life, right? So walking should come after your baby's mastered a lot of physical movement, a lot of exploration on the floor, on the furniture and all of that. So these five big or gross motor milestones, right? Tummy time, rolling, crawling, standing and walking. There's a lot, like I said, a lot of micro progressive steps interspersed. And I just want you to step back and I want you to think about all of them. But let's zero in for a little while on crawling. Let's go a little bit deeper because the research is pretty clear these days and it's not, it's not about moving forward. Like I said, right, that what the research has shown us or taught us in the last 20, 30 years, it builds that corpus callosum, like I said, it improves the communication between the right and the left hemispheres. It boosts spatial awareness, visual tracking, hand eye coordination, all of the foundational fundamental learning for reading and writing, for literally our literacy skills, right? It promotes neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to adapt and grow, right? It literally releases bdnf, which is a brain derived neurotrophic factor. And in simple terms, it's a protein. BDNF is a protein that helps the neurons grow, right, and connect. Like I said, you have a hundred billion neurons that are just hanging out at birth and we need them to grow and connect and survive and communicate with each other. And so by, by crawling that helps push that, that protein out. It's BDNF is considered like brain food that supports learning and supports memory and those, those kinds of things. But most importantly, crawling supports sensory integration. And we haven't really talked a lot or specifically about that. But sensory integration helps us organize all that input that comes at us in this world. You know, when babies are first born, they're, they're overwhelmed by the sensory input. And our job is to get in sync with them and help them learn how touch and sight and smell and auditory input can be regulated. But they have to experience that through a calm system, right? And so one of the reasons, one of the things that research has taught us is that crawling is a powerful predictor of later coordination problems or attention problems, like I said, and even literacy problems. So you can look at a child who is missed crawling as a red flag, but I look at it as just putting them in a different developmental risk group, right? Doesn't mean that they're going to have attention problems or literacy problems. It just means that as we progress, we move through 12 and 16 and 18 and 24 months. If that crawling wasn't there, then maybe we can play a lot of on the floor games, right? We can do a lot of things to try to help build some of that wiring system that they didn't naturally get. So here's the exciting part. If we really want to step back and say, okay, what does all this data over the last 20, 30 years taught us? That it's not just about babies. And, you know, I started my career way back when, and I've shared this with you before, that I didn't really like babies and toddlers. I thought they were too messy. So I, I started with geriatrics, right? Neuro rehab and, and the aging brain and all of that. So the research now is connecting that these movement patterns like crawling or squatting and lifting and pulling and bending, they're good for all of us at any age. So it helps continue to wire that brain and keep the communication between your right hemisphere and your left hemisphere through that corpus callosum when we have a wide variety of movements. So whether you're helping your baby learn to crawl or you're in your 50s and 60s like me, and you're trying to age gracefully, movement stimulates the brain. And I knew this in my practice as I started working with older kids and a lot of teenagers. We knew that weightlifting, rock climbing, swimming, all of these physical stimulations help build a healthy communicative brain, right? That right hemisphere and the left hemisphere and that these functional exercises that you see all over social media now, which I'm a part of, right? I'm doing the animal crawls, the bear crawl, a lot of different, different types of squats, right cross body taps, all of this, they're adult versions of the baby movement patterns that you see with your 6 month old and 12 month old and 2 year old. It supports balance, cognitive function and our emotional resilience. It's both sides of the life continuum and every step in between because we now understand so much more, right, that movement and brain health are or should be lifelong partners. And so when I talk about the babies, it also benefits us adults or middle aged people or 20, 30 something year olds, right, that both sides of the brain need to talk to each other. We need a strong corpus callosum. We need, like I've said in previous episodes, good nutrition, feeding the brain. We need good sleep, we need a lot of movement, we need some sunshine, we need social communication, all of these things, right, that help put us through these life experiences, right? Crossing midline, challenging our balance, like with yoga or crawling on the floor, bear crawls, that we're, we're really stimulating neural connections and they're not, you know, melting away, right? But it helps with our mood, it helps with even our sleep, right? When we get enough movement throughout the day, we sleep better. When we sleep better, we're in a better mood. When we're in a better mood, then we're more likely to try different foods, right? And that all is interrelated. So I do want to talk about the elephant in the room for a second, right? There's a controversy about this whole crawling thing. And maybe you've heard about it, maybe you haven't, maybe you've talked to your pediatrician. Because what happened is that crawling technically isn't on the developmental milestone list or checklist anymore. And what happened in 2022? The CDC, along with the American Academy of Pediatrics, updated, quote, unquote, their official milestone checklist. And their stated goal for updating these was to make the guidelines easier to interpret and that they wanted to just list the behaviors where at least 75% of the children had achieved XYZ by a certain age, right? And the idea that they say is that they wanted to help parents and pediatrician catch delays earlier rather than wait and see the math. The timeline didn't really add up to us. We were, we're still kind of questioning it all. But here's the thing. They the American Academy of Pediatrics, the CDC did not consult with any pediatric therapists, occupational therapists, speech language people, physical therapists, early interventionists. They just simply removed crawling from that checklist. And when we all asked, but why? They said, well, some babies don't crawl, period. Some scoot Some might roll, some get creative with their movement. But crawling in and of itself technically isn't required because lots of kids don't crawl and eventually learn how to walk. And as a pediatric therapist with over 35 years of early intervention, many of my OT and PT colleagues, we kind of have issue with. And we're still talking about it, right? Because the point is, what I just described, crawling isn't about going from point A to point B. It's about building core strength. Yes, but it's also about wiring that brain right, which allows us for better balance and synchronicity of our body. Bilateral coordination, it builds visual tracking skills. We know this, that you know, that the eyes need to work together and track together. It builds spatial awareness and it even supports brain communication. Like I said, the left and the right hemisphere communicate more efficiently because we have a stronger and stronger corpus callosum. So the foundation, in our opinion, is that it's not optional, that getting down on the floor and doing all of these wide variety of gross motor planning really helps mature the system across the board. And just because the CDC removed it off of their list, I think it sends the wrong message that the truth is not every baby, like I said, crawls exactly the same way or in the exact time frame. But what we're saying, if you just erase it entirely, then we're missing a lot of good information about early child development and where they are in this process. And we miss the opportunity. We as professionals and you as parents, we miss the opportunity to talk about where they are in all of these steps. So just keep this in mind. Like I said last week, milestone checklists were originally designed to start a conversation. You know, houses sleeping, houses rolling over, houses pulling up to stand. Let's talk about that. But very few pediatricians will sit down and talk about that. They will ask you the questions or you fill out the chart and they put it in the file. They might have a follow up question or two. But to sit down and converse, that rarely happens. But here's the other interesting thing, that crawling isn't the only milestone that quietly got pushed back. Speech and language pathologists like myself were not too pleased that they manipulated the developmental milestone of two word phrases and they pushed that out from 24 months to 30 months. And that is another whole topic of conversation. My point is, when I saw this coming down the pike in 2021 and 2022, I started looking at. But why?
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C
Right?
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Because our goal, again to use these milestones is to say, what does a healthy, typically developing child look like. And in both of these, I believe it's where we're lowering the expectation that really does a disservice to your child and you as parents. And so when I started looking, you know, under the rocks and behind the curtain and under the hood and all of that good stuff, all of those metaphors, the truth is, the CDC checklist, these developmental milestones were actually just introduced to us, to the public at large, in 2004. 4. And I thought that was interesting that the government or the CDC Health Medical Complex, for lack of better word, they really haven't been involved in the individual child's health and well being all that long. And I think it was a necessity that they, they created in 2004 because so many kids were being identified with pretty significant developmental issues.
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C
Right.
- [46:31]
A
But this chart that I shared with you all last session was from Speech and Language Development. It's actually from Pro Ed, a company. And this is the third edition. The first edition was published in 1980, and then it was revised in 1993 and then again in 2012. So. So I've been using this same document since the 80s. And on these, I'm sure there's going to be a revision, but I'm not quite sure what they're going to do about crawling or two word phrases. But meanwhile, they are still included here and they're exactly where I think they need to be because both build brain connections and that's what it's all about. It's not necessarily because we want the kid to move across the floor in the living room. We want the right and the left hemisphere to practice and wire and build neural connections. And so as far as I'm concerned that we've looked at these developmental steps as far back as the 1920s with Piaget and Montessori. And like I stated in the last episode, we will continue to explore these. And I think in my best humble professional opinion, is that these developmental milestones do matter, but the subtle micro milestones between them also matter.
- [48:12]
C
Right.
- [48:12]
A
Because I think it's more about why they are doing XYZ or they're not doing xyz. And so I think for the CDC to change things and not consult with anybody who's on the floor working with kids or have studied the subtle nuances. They didn't ask us. And I think it's very important for all of us to ask questions.
- [48:40]
C
Right.
- [48:41]
A
Let's look at the trends if that's true. Let's see. And we need to ask why are kids struggling more?
- [48:49]
C
Right.
- [48:50]
A
They Certainly have increased in numbers. And I've shared this with you over and over again in my 35, 40 years of practice.
- [48:59]
C
Right.
- [48:59]
A
And that gives me a really wide scope.
- [49:04]
C
Right.
- [49:05]
A
Lots of data to look through. And I continue to ask questions. I look at, well, perhaps we might want to look at our modern lifestyle. Maybe that's contributing to some of these motor delays, why kids aren't crawling anymore. It's not just that. Oh, that, that was unrealistic.
- [49:28]
C
Right.
- [49:28]
A
But maybe our lifestyle, our parenting lifestyle has shifted and there's a correlation that we need to look at. I know there's a correlation between the food choices that we eat and kids who have poor speech and articulation.
- [49:45]
C
Right.
- [49:45]
A
That is not a direct one to one correlation, but I know it again puts you in a different risk group. And so I started to dig deep into this and one of the things that we can all attest to is that over the past couple of decades we've seen an explosion of baby gear that's designed for our convenience. And a lot of it is wonderful, don't get me wrong, right. Infant car seats. And then we can just pull them out of the carrier themselves. They don't even have to wiggle out, right? Swings, bouncer seats, loungers, all kinds of gadgets. And while they might be quote unquote safe, meaning there are some things like bouncers and the circular. Can't even remember what it's called, those things are not safe. I wouldn't ever recommend them. But it certainly has changed their daily routine and what a lot of OTs and PTs are looking at, it's quietly replaced something critical. And that's the floor time, right. Their ability to explore, right. If they have to sleep on their back because of the new mandate back in 1994, like I mentioned earlier, then they need tummy time, floor time on their belly to enhance those skills.
- [51:21]
C
Right.
- [51:22]
A
So pediatric occupational therapists actually have been sounding the alarm for a number of years about all of these gadgets and that babies spend too much time in what's called containers, right. That they're missing out on these natural opportunities to move, to stretch, to reach, to pull, to roll, and eventually crawl and walk. But if they, if they're contained in these gadgets, there's actually a term for it now, it's called container baby syndrome. And, and again in the 1990s, I think mid to late looking at first started to have the car seats where you could just unlatch it and not pull out the child, but pull out the whole container, right? And, and I, I want to be very clear here. I'm not saying that parents, you or me or anybody, that we're doing something wrong. It means that the gear has become the norm and that we are missing opportunities, right? That our babies seem to be paying the price for weaker core strength, delayed balance, right? Reduced sensory input, sensory integration skills. There's a lot more fussiness going on, a lot more just intolerable ability to change to growth, right? And so like always, I like to ask questions. What if the reason fewer babies were crawling and that prompted CDC to say, huh, maybe it's not that important anymore. Maybe the reason why fewer babies were crawling is because of the modern lifestyle and not the biology or the growth development, right? What if we're quietly accepting these delays as new normal instead of asking, hey, why aren't babies crawling like they used to? I want to ask those questions versus just taking a developmental milestone that I know has a lot more to do with brain growth and development than motor growth, right? And this is why I'm such a strong advocate for intentional movement. Tummy time, floor, time floor play, parent interaction, all of that. Because what we used to see happen, quote, unquote, naturally, now we have to build it into their daily routine on purpose, right? Tummy time is a great example. And in a nutshell, I just think when we start thinking about it and we know how to do it better, or we make choices with more informed information, then we can live a better life. So here's my best advice. After 35 years of practice, don't panic over all of this. That the idea is that we shouldn't ignore it either. That we should always be looking and we should always be studying. Where is my child? Let's look deeply into all of these micro and major developmental milestones and see where they are. And it's not just about crawling forward. It's about the steps leading up to that. Were they into rolling? How were they when they first started to sit independently? Were they strong? Did they fatigue a lot? Did they fall over? Are they able to sit up in the high chair for extended periods of time? Did they do an army crawl? Were they pretty creative in their pulling to stand? And they're cruising. Look at all of it. So the truth is, you know your child the best. If something feels off, don't ignore it. Trust your gut. Ask questions. Maybe that's why you're seeking my title and you're looking for more answers, right? Early intervention isn't just about fixing the problem. It's about supporting your child's development in real time. So you can ask your pediatrician, but don't stop there, right? Ask a pediatric physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech language pathologist like myself, who does understand developmental patterns. We're not all equal either, right? So if you aren't getting the feedback or the confirmation or the listening when you're, when you call a PT or OT or speech person, then call somebody else. And even if you get on somebody's waiting list or you're fortunate to get scheduled, you know, a few weeks out, you still should act. Now take this information that I'm sharing with you and start collecting your own research, right? So some of the things that you can always do. Create open, safe spaces for your baby and your toddlers to move in, right? Get down on the floor with them, imitate their play, expand their attention, prompt them and encourage them. And like I always say, go outside, right? Play in the dirt, play in the grass, play in the sand. Get them really comfortable in a wide variety of environments and celebrate the messy process, right? Don't rush it. Know that moving active, inquisitive babies are really, really the key, right? You're moving them forward. You want to guide them, you want to create the environments that facilitates their curiosity. And that's what intentional parenting is all about, right? And we do have to look at our modern lifestyle and say, okay, what are we doing that perhaps are interfering? So movement isn't just physical. Take this home. It's not just physical, it's neurological, right? You're the guide and you help them through these processes. No one knows your baby like you do, and no one has more influence than you do. You don't really have to force anything. Just be creative. Lean into that plan the floor, don't rush. And always remember that their nervous system is still under construction. And through your support, your patience, your guidance, you're connecting those neurons, you're building those pathways, you're making it efficient and stronger and automatic. Right before you move on, I just want to offer my small group coaching program that is going to kick off in mid May, because May is better speech and hearing month. So it's perfect timing if you've been feeling unsure, overwhelmed, or perhaps you just need a little more real time support. This small group is for you. This is where we can go deeper. And you'll learn exactly how to guide your baby and your toddler through all of these developmental phases with confidence. And the best, I think, is that you'll get direct access with me in a small personal coaching group. And I keep these groups intentionally small so I know they'll fill up. The small size is really important that you and a few other moms who are in it with you can really feel heard and make a difference. So get on the wait list. There's a link down below in the show notes. You don't want to miss this. I want you to be more clear and more intentional and to find peace. Right. A peace of mind that you're looking to build this beautiful child in this busy, active, modern world with confidence.
- [59:58]
C
Right.
- [59:59]
A
I don't want you to have to play catch up. And so let's talk about this now versus later on.
- [60:05]
C
All right.
- [60:05]
A
Thanks again for spending your precious time with me, and I look forward to seeing you in the next one. Thanks. Take care. God bless.
- [60:13]
C
Bye.